Until his retirement to Santa Fe in 2008, Dr. Juan Oliver was the director of the Hispanic/Latino Program and adjunct professor of Liturgics at The General Seminary in New York City.

He holds the M.Div., from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and the M.F.A. in painting and drawing from the University of New Mexico. He earned the Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley with his dissertation, “The Look of Common Prayer: The Anglican Liturgical Place in Anglo-American Culture,” which explored how a local vision of the Reign of God might be the main theological criterion for evaluating worship spaces.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has grabbed headlines with his off-the-cuff homilies, crowd-pleasing one-liners and lengthy interviews during which he has pontificated on everything from the church’s “obsession” with rules to how he won’t judge gays. But his chattiness has gotten him into some trouble, and the Vatican has gone into damage-control mode to clarify, correct or put his comments into context. Read the full article here.

The great historian Martin E. Marty wrote an insightful response concerning statements that Pope Francis made in an interview with “America” magazine.

By Martin E. Marty

Martin E. Marty

The headline on a Thursday (Sept. 19) news story linked the Catholic Church’s “focus on gays” and “abortion,” and, said the same headline, Pope Francis “bluntly faults” those who have focused on that focus.

What struck, or should strike, all readers who read on, is this: Pope Francis means it! His comments do not have the weight of an encyclical, a long-thought-out formal church teaching, but he knows from response to what he has said earlier, that there will be a huge response. His words are not small-print filler at the end of a Sunday church bulletin; they have to have been thought out, and he is broadcasting them.

Reaction? One can picture the most outspoken and sensationalist Catholics-on-the-right, who thought they had captured the ear and voice of modern pontiffs, jumping out of the windows — without parachutes, just as some did when Wall Street crashed in 1929. They had their innings to enjoy Schadenfreude as popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI had “bluntly faulted” those who took Vatican II reforms seriously. Now the temptation will be strong for those faulted in recent decades to leap up with a “hooray for our side” shout, which they hope will be numbing to the new poor losers. Read More…